At Cruise1st, we are super-excited about the summer of sport set to grace Rio de Janeiro and all our TV sets later this year. Watching the best athletes from around the world is always exciting, and after Team GB’s stellar performance last time round, anticipation for the games is greater than ever. So to get you in the swing of things, we’ve conducted our own Cruise Ship Comparison Game – pitting the world’s best cruise ships against one another across five different disciplines.
Notes – competing ships will be the fleets of the Cruise1st featured lines: Royal Caribbean, Celebrity Cruises, Azamara Club Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line, Cunard Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, Carnival Cruise Line, P&O Cruises and MSC Cruises.
We’ve also limited entries to one member per class and in the event of a tie, the ship which entered service first will be selected as the winner.
Let the games commence!
Speed
Always a highlight of any athletic event, the 100m dash. So here, we’ll take a look at the ships capable of reaching the highest speeds in a bid to be named the Usain Bolt of the seas.
Gold: Queen Mary 2 (Cunard Line) – 30 Knots
Silver: MV Oriana (P&O Cruises) – 26.2 Knots
Bronze: MS Rotterdam (Holland America Line) – 25 Knots
Did you know? 1 Knot is 1.15078 miles/hr.
Length
We’ve had to a bend the rules slightly with this one, because cruise ships can’t jump or throw.
Gold: Oasis of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) – 1,187ft
Silver: Quantum of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) – 1,139ft
Bronze: Queen Mary 2 (Cunard Line) – 1,132ft
Did you know? Reports suggest that Oasis’ sister Allure of the Seas is actually 2 inches longer, but this may have been due to the outdoor temperature causing the steel to expand at the time of the measurement. So we’ve gone off the official measurements.
Staterooms
The fear that you’d bump into the same people every day aboard a cruise ship are destroyed by these medallists with a massive number of staterooms.
Gold: Oasis of the Seas (Royal Caribbean) – 2,706
Silver: Norwegian Escape (Norwegian Cruise Line) – 2,124
Bronze: Norwegian Epic (Norwegian Cruise Line) – 2,114
Did you know? The Oasis of the Seas’ maximum capacity is a staggering 6,296 guests!
Passenger/Crew Ratio
One for the smaller ships, here we reward the ships with the smallest number of guests for every crew member.
Gold: Celebrity Xpedition (Celebrity Cruises) – 1.47 Passengers/Crew
Silver: Carnival Conquest (Carnival Cruises) – 1.56 Passengers/Crew
Bronze: MS Prisendam (Holland America Line) – 1.63 Passengers/Crew
Did you know? The Celebrity Xpedition is the only cruise ship in operation which routinely visits the Galapagos Islands.
The Long-Service Award
Cruising is an industry steeped with history, so we can’t ignore this in our game. Here is the long-service award, recognising those ships who are now cruising’s elder statesmen.
Gold: Carnival Fantasy (Carnival Cruises) – 1991
Silver: MS Maasdam (Holland America Line) – 1993
Bronze: MV Oriana (P&O Cruises) – 1995
Did you know? Gold medallist, Carnival Fantasy, was the first ship to return to New Orleans and call the city its home following Hurricane Katrina.
Leaders Table
After five hard fought rounds, here are the final standings for each of the cruise lines in the first ever Cruise Ship Comparison Game. Using the 3:2:1 scoring system (with a little bonus for golds in the event of a tie) we reveal our first champion!
| Position | Cruise Line | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Final Score |
| 1 | Royal Caribbean | 2 | 1 | 0 | 7 |
| 2 | Carnival Cruise Line | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| 3 | Cunard Line | 1 | 0 | 1 | 4 |
| 4 | Holland America Line | 0 | 1 | 2 | 4 |
| 5 | Celebrity Cruises | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 6 | Norwegian Cruise Line | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| = | P&O Cruises | 0 | 1 | 1 | 3 |
| 8 | Azamara Club Cruises | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| = | MSC Cruises | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| = | P&O Cruises | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Congratulations Royal Caribbean, our very first champion!
If you’d like to enjoy a cruise aboard Royal Caribbean or any other competing line, Cruise1st have a huge range of deals. For more information, visit our homepage or call us today on 0808 2746 777.
Images sourced via Flickr Creative Commons. Credits: El Coleccionista de Instante, Carlo Mirante
